Snow-N-Summer Asiatic Jasmine

Every garden has areas in shade that are difficult to fill. Yes, you might have trees and some shade-loving shrubs, but all that bare ground underneath is boring, and how much mulch can you live with? Instead of bare earth or dead mulch, bring those shady spots to life with the most colorful and vibrant ground cover around, the Snow-N-Summer™ Asiatic Jasmine. This special form of a tough, reliable ground cover for warmer zones is sure to win you over, with its pink and white new growth so colorful it looks like it’s perpetual blooming. The mature leaves are cheerful and bright too, with their mottled white and green surface. There is even more in summer, when fragrant white flowers are scattered like the Milky Way across this lively carpet of many colors. Such a gorgeous plant is also great tumbling out of pots and planter boxes, perhaps below taller plants, or mixed with flowers. One thing is for sure, though – wherever and however you grow it, you are going to love this wonderful low-growing plant.

Growing the Snow-N-Summer™ Asiatic Jasmine

Size and Appearance

The Snow-N-Summer Asiatic Jasmine is a sprawling vine-like plant that grows 6 to 8 inches tall, but spreads 2 or 3 feet across the ground. It has long thin stems covered with pairs of evergreen, glossy, oval leaves, each between 1 and 2 inches long. When mature the leaves are mottled and splashed in patterns of green and white, looking bright in the darkest corners of the garden. New growth is at first bright pink, and then the leaves turn pure white, before taking on their mature mottled patterning. Through July and August abundant clusters of fragrant flowers grow along the stems, releasing the gorgeous scent of jasmine. Each flower is almost an inch across, with 5 petals arranged like a windmill, and a bright yellow center. The small seed heads that grow later are attractive to songbirds.

Using the Snow-N-Summer™ Asiatic Jasmine in Your Garden

This colorful plant is perfect to brighten up dark areas beneath taller plants, or around the base of trees, where grass won’t grow. Cover slopes, banks and low mounds with color and beauty. This plant will also climb up a low fence, such as an ugly chain-link, turning it from eyesore into eye-candy. Since it will tolerate some salt, it is very useful at a beach cottage. It is also perfect for cascading out of planter boxes and pots, or for using in window-boxes alone or with flowers.

Hardiness

The Asiatic jasmine is hardy from zone 7, thriving in all warmer zones and throughout Florida and around the Gulf. In cooler areas, if you use it in pots, you can lift the plants in fall , slip them into a flower pot and keep them in a cool, well-lit place for the coldest months.

Sun Exposure and Soil Conditions

The Snow-N-Summer Asiatic Jasmine will grow in full sun in zone 7, but generally prefers partial shade to light full shade, so it’s ideal for all those difficult shady spots in your garden. It does best in fertile, reasonably moist soil, but once established it is drought resistant, and overall very tough, adaptable, and able to grow in all but the worst conditions. It has moderate salt tolerance.

Maintenance and Pruning

When planting as a ground cover, spread the young plants randomly across the area, spacing them about 2 feet apart in each direction. Set the front row about 12 inches back from the edge of the bed. This plant can take a season to become established, before growing vigorously, so mulch between the plants with something organic like rotted leaves, or fine bark, to conserve moisture, prevent weeds and to attract the plant to spread outwards. In poor soils, feeding with liquid evergreen fertilizer in the first few summers is useful. This plant doesn’t seem to be bothered by pests or diseases, and it’s usually ignored by deer.

History and Origin of the Snow-N-Summer™ Asiatic Jasmine

The Asiatic Jasmine, Trachelospermum asiaticum, was found around 1825 in Japan by Philipp Franz von Siebold, a German doctor and naturalist who was able to collect and study plants in Japan at a time when Europeans generally couldn’t travel there. Many of the Asian plants we grow in our gardens were found by him. Wild plants can sprawl or climb up to 20 feet. There are several forms with colored foliage, but far and away the best is the variety called ‘HOSNS’. The origin of this plant has been lost, but it could have come from Japan, where other forms with colored leaves originated. It has been released for gardeners in America by the Greenleaf Nursery Company, under their Garden Debut® brand, with the trademark name of Snow-N-Summer™.

Buying the Snow-N-Summer™ Asiatic Jasmine at the Tree Center

You are going to love this knockout beauty when you grow it – it’s so wonderfully colored it looks like it is always in bloom. Order now, because tough and yet beautiful plants like this one never stay on our farm for long.